1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ophthalmic apparatus for inspecting or measuring a patient's eyes and more particularly, to a mechanism for aligning the patient's eye with the apparatus so as to be the predetermined positional relationship
2. Description of Related Art
As an ophthalmic apparatus for inspecting or measuring a patient's eye, such apparatus as a refractive power measuring apparatus, a corneal shape measuring apparatus and the like are well known. This kind of apparatus needs an alignment adjustment which adjusts a position of a measuring part by moving it to vertical and lateral directions, as well as backward and forward directions, relative to the patient's eye.
Most of this kind of apparatus measures each eye one by one, and the alignment adjustment thereof is performed by observing one eye of the patient, which is to be measured by an operators with an observing device of high magnifications then moving the apparatus relative to the patient's eye.
However, a size of a face and a position of an eye of a patient differs with persons, therefore, in case of the alignment adjustment by using the observing device of high magnification, the patient's eye does not always come in observation sight simultaneously at the time of starting alignment. In such case, an operator not skilled in measuring takes much time to perform the alignment adjustment for the patient's eye.
In addition, although such apparatus that aligns a measuring part with a patient's eye automatically is proposed, the detecting range is small, therefore, the alignment adjustment which comes close to the patient's eye needs the operator's (or the examiner's) own operation.